Russia's power-sharing arrangement is showing signs of internal friction, with the Moscow business daily Vedomosti reporting Monday that the offices of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev had been deliberately booking meetings at identical times, drawing the same senior officials to each.
Multiple sources cited by the paper said top officials were being forced to choose which leader to attend. One Kremlin official described the pattern as "games" designed to project the appearance of personal competition, while the real rivalry ran between the two men's staffs rather than the men themselves.
The story lands against a backdrop of speculation about the 2012 presidential race. Putin stepped back from the presidency in 2008 when Medvedev took office but has not closed the door on returning. Medvedev sharpened the intrigue last week with his most pointed public disagreement in three years, rebuking Putin's position on Libya.
Parliamentary speaker Boris Gryzlov and Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin were conspicuously absent from a major Putin address this month, held up at Medvedev engagements. Both sides officially insist their calendars are fully coordinated, with Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying ministers treat the president's meetings as the priority and send deputies to the premier's.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in March 2011, in its own words.